Continued advancements in computer and networking technologies have transformed the computer from a high-cost, low performance data processing machine to a low cost and efficient communications, problem solving and entertainment system that has revolutionalized the manner in which personal and business related tasks are performed each day. Examples of such tasks include basic correspondence, purchasing goods, providing goods, gathering information, requesting services, providing services, etc. Traditionally, personal tasks such as corresponding with friends and family required a person to obtain paper, a writing utensil, an envelope and a stamp, generate a hardcopy of the correspondence, and deposit the letter in the mail. The foregoing generally required the consumer to expend money and time and necessitated travel to obtain supplies and/or mail the letter. Additionally, the recipient would not receive the letter until hours or days later, depending on how much the sender was willing to pay for a mailing service. Conventional business transactions commonly involve several phone conversations, paper communication (e.g., mail and fax), and/or in-person interaction with one or more parties; and, in some instances, one or more of the parties could turn out not to be a suitable partner, for example, due to cost, proximity or inability to meet transaction needs.
Today, an increasing number of personal and business transactions are likely to be facilitated and/or performed with computer and networking technologies. For example, correspondence, bill paying, shopping, budgeting and information gathering can all be achieved with the assistance of a computer connected to an appropriate network and with suitable user privileges. By way of example, a consumer/provider can obtain a computer (e.g., a desktop computer, a laptop, a hand-held, a cell phone, etc.) and interface it with a network such as a LAN, a WAN, a Wi-Fi network, the Internet, etc. The network can provide a communications link from the computer to one or more other computers (e.g., servers), which can be located essentially anywhere throughout the world. This link can be utilized to exchange data, consume merchandise, and access a wealth of information residing in a repository of data banks, for example. Another advantage of such communication is that it can be utilized at the convenience of one's home, at the user's fingertips or a click of a mouse button, and, at many times, at no or minimal expense to the user.
A growing trend is to leverage the benefits of the web domain to facilitate completing personal and business transactions since the web domain can provide user-friendly interface, a relatively secure environment, interoperability, and a developer-friendly environment, for example. In the web domain, services associated with various web sites and/or disparate web servers can be accessed through a web browser. For example, a web user can deploy a web browser and access a web site by entering the site's Uniform Resource Locator (URL) into an address bar of the web browser. A typical URL includes at least four pieces of information that facilitate establishing a link to the web site. Namely, the URL can include a protocol (a communications language) that indicates a set of rules and standards for information exchange, an address or location of the web site, a name of an organization that maintains the web site, and a suffix (e.g., com, org, net, gov and edu) that identifies the type of organization. As an example, an exemplary fictitious address can be delineated as follows: “http” can specify that the web server utilizes Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP); “://” is standard URL syntax; “www” can specify the web site resides within the World Wide Web (“web”); “foo” can specify the web server is located at Foo Corporation; “com” can specify that Foo Corporation is a commercial institution; and “.” is utilized as a separator between the foregoing fields.
This distributed means of communication (communication between computers residing at disparate locations) over the Internet has lead to a concept referred to as a “web service.” In general, a web service can be defined as an application that executes in connection with the web to provide a mechanism to locate and select a service provider to carry out a task or to provide such services. In many instances, communication amongst such services includes providing information related to the task and/or services offered by disparate users. Such information can be utilized to facilitate matching a service that is requesting a provider with a suitable service provider. In general, to provide such matching, context-based routing can be employed, wherein content-based routing is the process where intermediaries (e.g., applications) redirect incoming messages based at least in part upon the content of the message. In conventional systems and/or methods, if a content-based routing system could not route a message, the message would be suspended and undelivered until user intervention corrected such message.